Octopus & Squid RNA Editing– Amazing and Really Weird

Posted on by March 19, 2019

If a science fiction writer wanted to create a really bizarre alien space creature, using an octopus as a model would not be a bad place to start. After all, an octopus has three hearts, nine brains, and blue blood. The nervous system includes a central brain and large brain-like ganglion at the base of each arm which controls movement. The majority of neurons in an octopus are found in the arms, which can independently taste and touch and also control basic motions without input from the brain. An octopus also has the highest brain-to-body mass ratios of any invertebrates; greater than that of many vertebrates, as well. Not surprisingly, octopuses are highly intelligent.

But it gets weirder. Unlike most other living creatures, octopuses, along with some squid and cuttlefish species, routinely edit their RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt to their environment. That is RNA, not DNA. 

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Herodotus Got It Right — the Baris from Thonis-Heracleion

Posted on by March 18, 2019

Photo: Christoph Gerigk/Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation

Six years ago, we posted about the sunken lost city of Thonis-Heracleion in Abu Qir Bay near the Canopic Mouth of the Nile. The city sank into the Mediterranean around 1,2000 years ago and was only rediscovered in 1999. The city dates back roughly 2,700 years and was a major trading port for centuries.

Now marine archeologists have excavated a baris, a type of ship described by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, from Thonis-Heracleion. The construction of the craft is unique. Here is what Herodotus wrote about the baris:

From [the acacia] tree they cut pieces of wood about two cubits in length and arrange them like bricks, fastening the boat together by running a great number of long bolts through the two-cubit pieces; and when they have thus fastened the boat together, they lay cross-pieces[81] over the top, using no ribs for the sides; and within they caulk the seams with papyrus.  Continue reading →

On St. Patrick’s Day — Emerald Green Icebergs

Posted on by March 17, 2019

While most icebergs are whiteish-blue, they can be a range of colors, including emerald green. Indeed, in Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the mariner describes how “ice, mast-high, came floating by, as green as emerald.”

Why are some icebergs green? In time for St. Patrick’s Day, a paper in the American Geophysical Union journal JGR Oceans, titled “Green Icebergs Revisited” by researchers led by Stephen Warren, a glaciologist and emeritus professor at the University of Washington, offers a new theory about how these verdant icebergs come to be.

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Shiplore Screening of “Trapped In Typhoon Alley” — the Mystery of the Loss of the MV Derbyshire

Posted on by March 16, 2019

The disappearance of the Capesize bulk carrier MV Derbyshire in Typhoon Orchid shocked the shipping industry.  How a new, large and well-built ship with a trained crew could have simply vanished became a mystery that would take more than 20 years to solve.  

On Monday, March 18th, New York’s Shiplore is screening Trapped in Typhoon Alley, episode one of a new documentary series “Disasters at Sea” produced by Exploration Production Inc. in association with Smithsonian Networks and Discovery Channel (Canada). The documentary looks at the sinking of the MV Derbyshire in 1980 and the two decades of investigations which followed before the mystery of her sinking was finally solved. I was fortunate enough to appear briefly as an expert commenter in the documentary. I will be providing additional commentary on the sinking and investigations before and after the documentary. 

If you are in the area, stop by 80 White Street, Monday, March 18th at 7:30 PM.

USS Fort McHenry Quarantined at Sea for Two Months

Posted on by March 15, 2019


USS Fort McHenry, a US Navy Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship, with over 700 sailors and Marines aboard, has spent the last two months at sea without a port-call. The reason? There has been an outbreak of parotitis, a virus with symptoms similar to the mumps.

Until CNN asked about the time the ship had been at sea, the Navy had not disclosed that the vessel was effectively being quarantined. The illness first broke out in December, with the most recent case being reported on March 9. So far, only about 25 of the more than 700 aboard have caught the virus.

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Women’s History Month — Eleanor Creesy, Navigator of the Clipper Ship Flying Cloud

Posted on by March 14, 2019

During Women’s History Month it is a worthwhile remembering Eleanor Creesy, the navigator of the clipper ship Flying Cloud, who with her husband, Captain Josiah Creesy, set world sailing records for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco. 

Eleanor Prentiss was born in 1814, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the daughter of a master mariner, who taught his daughter the art and science of navigation. Eleanor knew how to use a chronometer and a sextant and how to make a sight reduction. In 1841, Eleanor married Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy. The couple sailed together on the ship Oneida in the China trade. Josiah was captain of the ship but Eleanor was the navigator.

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Clipper Ship Cutty Sark 150th Anniversary — A Year-Long Celebration

Posted on by March 13, 2019

In February 1869, one hundred and fifty years ago, construction of the composite clipper ship Cutty Sark began on the banks of the River Clyde for the Jock Willis Shipping Line. The clipper ship sailed on its first voyage a year later in February 1870.

The Cutty Sark was one of the last tea clippers to be built, was one of the fastest and, perhaps most remarkably, is one of only two clipper ships to survive today. Now fully restored in a drydock in Greenwich, UK, the historic tea clipper is the centerpiece of a year-long celebration of its 150th anniversary.

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Container Fire Sinks Con/Ro Grande America in Bay of Biscay

Posted on by March 13, 2019

Another container fire has claimed another ship. On Sunday, a fire broke out in a weather-deck container on the roll on/roll off container ship MV Grande America while in the Bay of Biscay, 150 miles off the French coast. The fire quickly spread to other containers and to vehicles on the ro-ro deck. The captain ordered the crew of 27 to abandon ship. A lifeboat was launched but was damaged in heavy seas. 

Fortunately, HMS Argyll, a Royal Navy ‘Duke’ Class frigate, was in the area and was diverted to rescue Grande America’s crew. The rescue lasted eight hours in rough conditions. The crew were taken to the French port of Brest. Some of the crew required hospitalization, but no life-threatening injuries were reported.

The French authorities dispatched a Falcon 50 maritime surveillance plane to the scene. A fire fighting salvage tug attempted to bring the fire under control. Nevertheless, France’s Marine Nationale reported today that Grande America sank in the Bay of Biscay in 4,600 meters of water. MV Grande America was 28,000 DWT and operated by Grimaldi Group. 

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New Species of Orca Identified — Say Hello to Type D

Posted on by March 11, 2019

It is remarkable how little we really know about orcas, also known as killer whales. In January, a team of NOAA scientists located and began to study a likely new species of orca about 60 miles off the coast of Cape Horn, Chile, at the very tip of South America. The species referred to as Type D, looks quite different from other orcas, with a more rounded head, a pointier and narrower dorsal fin, and a very small white eye patch.

The Type D was type D killer whales, were previously known from amateur photographs, fishermen’s descriptions, and one mass stranding—but never encountered in their natural state by cetacean experts.

Mysterious new orca species likely identified

The Women Lighthouse Keepers of New Orleans’ New Canal Lighthouse

Posted on by March 4, 2023

New Canal Lighthouse

We recently posted about a planned statue honoring Kate Walker, the lighthouse keeper of the Robbins Reef Light in New York harbor for close to 35 years. Kate took over as keeper when her husband died of pneumonia in 1886. Oddly enough, in the 1800s, when women weren’t allowed to vote or own property, they could become lighthouse keepers.

Curbed New Orleans has posted an article about the female lighthouse keepers of the New Canal Lighthouse, on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, LA. They quote Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation Education Center director Chris Cook, who said, “Across the country, it wasn’t unusual for the man to die and the wife to take over. It is unusual that it happened so many times in the New Orleans area.”

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Right Whales, Seismic Testing, & a Congressman and an Air Horn

Posted on by March 9, 2019

Recently, an official with the Trump administration testified repeatedly at a hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee that the firing of commercial air guns under water every 10 seconds over a period of months in search of oil and gas deposits would have next to no effect on endangered right whales. Right whales use echolocation to communicate, feed, mate and keep track of their babies.

Despite testimony that the loud noises caused stress in the whales, lowered resistance to disease and was likely to interfere with the reproduction of the highly endangered whales, the administration, represented by Chris Oliver, an assistant administrator for fisheries, argued that there was no conclusive evidence that the seismic testing had ever actually killed a right whale. Oliver described the noise from commercial air guns as “sub-lethal.” 

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Statue Honoring Lighthouse Keeper Kate Walker

Posted on by March 9, 2019

New York City has announced a new statue of the late Robbins Reef Lighthouse keeper Katherine Walker which will be installed at the Staten Island Ferry landing.

Though standing only 4’10” tall and weighing around 100 pounds, Katherine Walker served as the keeper of the Robbins Reef Lighthouse for 35 years, following the death of her husband. In addition to the arduous task of keeping the light burning, she also rowed across the choppy waters of Upper New York harbor, a mile each way, to take her two children to school on Staten Island, weather permitting. 

An immigrant from Germany, Kate met and married John Walker, who in 1883 was appointed keeper of the Robbins Reef Lighthouse. Kate found herself living on a reef inhabited solely by harbor seals. (Robbins Reef comes from the early Dutch name, “Robyns Rift,” or Seal Rocks.) 

From SailNorthEast: In 1886 John Walker died from pneumonia, leaving Kate, now 38 and a widow with two teenaged children. His last words to her were not romantic but they were prophetic: “Mind the light, Kate.” And she did — from that day on, every single day, for more than three decades.

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In the Deepest Ocean Trenches, Animals Eating Plastic

Posted on by March 7, 2019

Photo: ALAN JAMIESON / NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

The bottom of the Mariana Trench, in the western Pacific Ocean, is the deepest point in any ocean of the world.  At its deepest, the bottom is over 36,000 feet below the surface. In comparison, Mount Everest is 29,000 above sea level, or over a mile shorter than the trench is deep.  

Researchers studying animals that live in these great depths have made several disturbing discoveries. Alan Jamieson, a marine biologist at Newcastle University, has been studying amphipods—scavenger relatives of crabs and shrimp that dwell in the deepest abyss. A few years ago, he tested these tiny creatures for pollutants and found high concentrations of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. PCBs have been banned for decades but persist in nature. Recently, Jamieson and his team started testing the amphipods for plastics.

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Congratulations to USCG Lt. Ronaqua Russell — First Black Female Aviator Awarded Air Medal

Posted on by March 19, 2019

Congratulations to Lt. Ronaqua Russell, the first African-American female aviator in the Coast Guard to receive the Air Medal.  From the Coast Guard press release:

The Air Medal is awarded to an individual who distinguishes themselves by heroic or meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight. Russell received this honor in recognition for her actions in response to Hurricane Harvey, one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history.  Continue reading →

100 Knot Wind Gusts Rock Cruise Ship Norwegian Escape, Several Passengers Injured

Posted on by March 5, 2019

The Norwegian Escape was struck by extreme wind gusts of around 100 knots, eight hours after the ship sailed from New York on a seven-night cruise to the Bahamas.  The ship heeled to the port side in the high winds. The ship arrived at its first destination at Port Canaveral in Florida on Tuesday morning.

Norwegian Cruise Lines tweeted: Several injuries were reported and those guests and crew received immediate attention or are being treated by the ship’s medical staff. There was no damage to the ship; she remains fully operational and continues her scheduled itinerary.

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